FOUNDER & ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Sometimes the transformation happens quickly, sometimes it takes a class, a semester, or even an accumulation of many conversations

or nudges to try dance...

But in the end, transformation,

-however big or small, does in fact happen!

It's witnessing these magical moments of transformation that paved the way for me to become an educator & advocate of dance."

-Kendra Mace Clark

BIOGRAPHY

Ms. Clark earned a Masters in Fine Arts in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College. As a performer she has worked with Jodi Melnick, Dianne McIntyre, Rashaun Mitchell, Buglisi Dance Theatre at Lincoln Center, and has performed a reconstruction of Martha Graham’s most acclaimed masterpiece Primitive Mysteries (1931) at the Joyce Theatre.

Ms. Clark’s work "Project PAUSE" was supported by the New York State Council on the Arts and premiered at the Southampton Cultural Center. Her works have also been commissioned for Universal Dance Association’s national performances broadcast on ESPN, the MoveUP! Dance Festival at The Clemente in NYC's Lower East Side, and the JumpstART Festival for

East End Arts.

Ms. Clark was awarded the Mark DeGarmo Dance Salon Series Choreography Award and is the recipient of the 2017 New York State Council on the Arts Creative Individual Artist Grant. She is also the 2017 Artist-in-Resident at Centre d'Art Marnay Art Centre (France) and has been awarded a Ténot Foundation Grant (France).

Ms. Clark is the Founder & Artistic Director of the Kendra Mace Dance Company. She was formerly the Dance Director of the Pontiac Dance Department in the Berkshires. She continues to develop Dance Making Workshops for academic institutions and community agencies throughout NYC, the Hamptons, and Miami.

Recipient of the 2017 New York State Council on the Arts Creative Individual Artist Grant.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I live, therefore I move:

My unyielding curiosity for the human body is the impetus for my work. My creative practice is a lifelong quest to understand the form, function, and the full capacity of the human body; its malleability, expressivity, and adaptability continue to hold my attention.

My art comes to exist in the human body through carefully calculated arrangements of movement melded from current and historical dance influences into a physically and visually charged contemporary dance language.

As a researcher of motion, my goal is to intentionally leverage the power of dance, creativity, and community to spreading dance appreciation and a broader agenda for change and transformation.

My works range from quirky, to athletic, to emotionally intense, and are each constructed through choreographic devices.

Photo credit: Paula Court

My body attends acutely to its urges to reveal new material through the phenomenon of dancing.

Photo credit: Paula Court ​

To me, the act of dancing is physical research. It is a meditative state of seeking a deeper understanding of the world.

Photo credit: Paula Court ​

My art comes to exist in the human body through carefully calculated arrangements of movement melded from current and historical dance influences, into a physically and visually charged language.

Photo credit: Paula Court ​

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As a researcher of motion, my goal is to intentionally leverage the power of dance, creativity, and community to spreading dance appreciation and a broader agenda for change and transformation.

Photo credit: Paula Court ​

Whether I’m creating a work to perform myself or setting choreography on an ensemble, I work tenaciously to perfect sequential shifts of weight to design sleek, musically driven sketches that ebb and flow through space, revealing subtle layers of meaning through sheer articulation.

Photo credit: Paula Court

My creative practice begins with a willingness to exhaust my body in an everlasting quest to make my inner world visible.

ARTISTIC PRACTICE

My creative practice begins with a willingness to exhaust my body in a quest to make my inner world visible. To me, the act of dancing is physical research. It is a meditative state of seeking a deeper understanding of myself and my experience of the world.

Through rigorous improvisation, I transcend to a deeply intuitive place where my mind is liberated from thought and my body attends to its gut instincts. I intuitively follow my imagination, even when I don’t know where it is taking me. My body attends acutely to its urges to reveal new material through the phenomenon of dancing.

Whether I’m creating a work to perform myself or setting choreography on an ensemble, I work tenaciously to perfect sequential shifts of weight to design sleek, musically driven sketches that ebb and flow through space, revealing subtle layers of meaning through sheer articulation.

I create texture by contrasting polar ideas: I create cohesion while honoring individuality, I’m sensitive to both skeletal and muscular details, and I meld highly mobilized, luscious movement with pedestrian mannerisms.

My works range from athletic, to quirky, to emotionally intense, and are each constructed through choreographic devices.

Photo credit: Paula Court

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

My mission as an educator is to instill curiosity in my students.

I motivate students to explore and discover the most effective way their bodies can move through their engagement in a contemporary practice that blends ballet and modern dance fundamentals.

My core ambition is to deepen their physical senses to create thinking bodies that are self-directed and can find themselves within movement.

I empower students by providing them with an opportunity to uniquely make sense of the dance material on their particular frame.

As they grow comfortable with kinesthetic learning, they also become increasing comfortable taking creative risks and exploring the unknown, in pursuit of discovering their form, function, and expressitivity.

Students learn to perceive deeply from within. As they gain a deep understanding of their physical instrument, they begin (or advance) their journey of becoming knowledgeable individuals, capable of artistic depth.